I prefer to think of this bit of inside-out evil that Ty Lawson visited upon the hips, thighs, knees and especially ankles of Nick Calathes on Monday night as an important bit of April Fools' Day advice: Don't get caught slipping — like, "Mortal Kombat,"SlipNutz-level slipping — out there. The result can be painful.

Oof. Unfortunately for Coloradans, the streetball-style sitdown of Calathes was one of the few things that went right for Lawson and the Denver Nuggets on Monday, as the sparkplug point guard managed just eight points on 3 for 9 shooting, six assists and five rebounds in 39 1/2 minutes against the Memphis Grizzlies.

Trailing by three points in the closing seconds with possession and a chance to tie, Nuggets head coach Brian Shaw drew up ... a 3-pointer for center Timofey Mozgov, whom the coach says has deep range but who entered Monday's action having gone 1 for 14 from long distance in his four-year NBA career. As our friends at the Yahoo Sports Minute noted, things didn't go so well:

So, to review: The Nuggets came out of a timeout with a designed 3-pointer by a 7-foot center with one career long-range make; when that didn't work, the center decided not to cast off again, but instead to drive and dunk while chomping up precious time. Then, after a quick foul of Courtney Lee, the Grizzlies shooting guard hit the first free throw and missed the second, running the final seven-tenths of a second off the clock and locking up a 94-92 victory that vaulted Memphis above the Phoenix Suns into the No. 8 spot in the brutal Western Conference playoff race.

The Nuggets, meanwhile, dropped their fourth straight game and fifth in six outings to fall to 32-42, continuing their slide to the lottery in a bummer of a season that has seen Danilo Gallinari, Nate Robinson and J.J. Hickson lost for the season to torn knee ligaments. After the game, Lawson seemed to vent some of his frustration on Twitter: